We’re continuing here with our discussion about the September 23, 2016, CBS This Morning show with Gayle King and Oprah Winfrey on the grand opening of Washington DC’s Smithsonian National African American Museum of History and Culture. We think it’s really important for us as white people to get a much deeper understanding of racial discrimination as it has been historically and continues to be experienced by Black Americans. We also know it is similar to but not identical to all kinds of other intolerance of many groups, including women of all races, lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender folks, immigrants, people with disabilities, poor people, rural people, and so on, who are treated unequally and with disdain and contempt in our communities, schools, and economic system.

We might see these transgressions against those who the dominant group views as “other” as a natural downside of the human condition, but the difference with the United States of America regarding intolerance and entrenched discrimination from this pattern of human behavior is that we have set a higher bar for ourselves in our Constitutional guarantees of liberty and justice for all. In other words, ending these patterns of behavior is written into the mission our forefathers left us.

In this episode of Good Morning America, Winfrey quoted a line from one of her favorite poems, “Our Grandmothers,” written by the late Maya Angelou, an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. “I come as one but I stand as ten thousand.” Winfrey said she felt that oneness throughout the museum along with the “tens and tens and tens of thousands of people” representing the culture and history of African American experience.

This line resonates deeply with us too, because white Americans are again coming forward “as one” to “stand as ten thousand” alongside Black Americans, who continue to be discriminated against not only by the bigots and racially prejudiced American population but also by the way that bigotry has written policy (the G.I. Bill, for example, was only usable by white veterans buying homes in white neighborhoods and going to college in white universities), by the way history is slanted (what white person understands that when “cotton was king,” it was the unpaid labor of enslaved Blacks that created the foundation of our nation’s current wealth in banking, agriculture, and shipping?), and by the stereotypes that persist in people’s minds, considering it’s the opposite that might be true (while the labors of Black men built the South, including the Capitol and the White House, and much of the rest of the country, and the actual white violence of racism affects every Black family with fear if not actual harm, what white person, who sleeps easily without fear of mass murder by armed Black men, does not yet hold the image of Black men as lazy, angry, and violent?).

This rallying cry, “I come as one, but I stand as ten thousand,” can also be heard growing louder as more heterosexual Americans are standing with LGBTQ communities, as more white Christians and Jews are standing with Indians fighting to cede no more of their land, water, and spiritual framework, and as women and men stand with one another in larger and louder and more all-encompassing coalitions across age, ethnicity, class, and political affiliation against the ongoing restriction of reproductive rights and the promised retrenchment of women’s humanity in the campaign of Donald Trump. Yes, the truth is lighting us up as this country’s bigoted underbelly becomes more and more exposed. People are coming as one and standing together by the millions in support of all kinds of minority groups and individuals who feel the hate and experience the despair by those laws and those people who would hold people down and then turn and scapegoat them for being there.

By the millions, we Americans are done with discrimination. We are done with power-over authority. We are done with lies about harm and denials about impact. We are done with the for-profit prison policies that capitalize on the loophole in the 13th Amendment, which allows forced, unpaid labor of inmates for commercial purposes. Or for any purposes.

The thing is, we have the ability to redress our wrongs. We do not need to dig into denial of white supremacy or minimize the harm it’s done at the center of our development in order to keep our republic intact. And we do not need to defend or elevate whiteness as the center of our potential and well-being to keep our economy strong. We need, rather, to “unpack it,” to deconstruct that concept of being white and being a white country so we can see how it operates, if we are to save our democracy for future generations.

White privilege or white supremacy, these tend to be invisible to most of us, particularly those who see ourselves as liberal, tolerant, supporters of civil rights, anti-racist, and the like. We’ve come to equate “racist” with bad, which might be a good thing, but it means we stop looking, because no one wants to think of themselves as bad. Consequently, we find ourselves in a society totally built upon racist preconceptions, with not a racist in sight.

Do you think that because you or your parents struggled for money, education, or opportunity that you are not experiencing any privilege due to the color of your skin? One thing you do know is that one of the things you struggled against was not the color of your skin. Add that to your struggle, and think again about your privilege. Maybe you lost an opportunity to a person of color. Is that why you think white privilege doesn’t apply to you? If you had lost that opportunity to another white person, would you be thinking about their race getting the better of you or their interview skills? Are you upset to even think about these things?

There is a phrase that describes how hard it is for us to talk about these issues, a phrase for how upset and angry we get any time someone brings up race as a factor in any issue? It’s called white fragility. Ladies, you know how men get all upset if you bring up the lower status of women as being a factor in an election or a job op or the cost of things, or anything for that matter? You know how “fragile” everyone says the “male ego” is, and how women have, for centuries, protected men from those fragile egos? White people in general have that same fragility regarding race. And people of color have been protecting us from it by not bringing up the fact of their color even though they know it is the first thing we see about them.

If they do bring it up, we are offended that they “played the race card.” We rarely take the time to understand that every moment in this country is racialized. If a working group is all white, it’s still a racialized group of segregated white people, none of whom are likely to bring up the experiences and daily issues of people of color that might be affected by what decisions are made. If it’s a mixed-race group, it’s racialized because it will be left to the people of color to bring up those issues, even though they know they will meet resistance to everything they say by those who do not recognize the experiences and issues of people of color as being real. The fact that our whiteness is something people of color have to deal with day in and day out, that our view of their skin color is at the center of their lives, including the energy they must expend to make sure they don’t hurt our feelings about it, never occurs to us. But by mid-century, more than half of the people in this country will be non-white. Does that concern you? Is it because you fear you will lose your privilege? Oh well, so you do see it then, don’t you? That’s white fragility.

Donald Trump, for example. He is the epitome of white fragility, though we might recognize a lesser version in ourselves. Clearly, Trump is racially prejudiced, bigoted, and narrow-minded. But he is also the type of person who, when threatened by values different from his own, will dig in his heels and stubbornly maintain his stance, even though it is contrary to good judgment. It is at that point when he will get very defiant and come across as uncompromising and increasingly hidebound and dogmatic. That’s when he absolutely refuses to yield, even when it’s clear to others that’s what he should do, even when he starts sputtering and losing his reason. And because he does it so often, perhaps even he knows what he says is untrue. He just can’t help himself. He’s too weak to be able to manage new material. Of course, he can’t be president of the United States when he demonstrates he does not have the moral fiber or analytical acumen to become commander-in-chief, when he frequently acts and thinks like a broken demagogue.

But we all have a bit of him in us, don’t we? When cognitive dissonance hits us, our jaws clench and our guts wrench. Like when, believing we are good people, we find out we have been making assumptions about our Black friends’ lives without ever observing their reality. We believe we are good people, but we are confronted with our assumption that some aspect of our white suburban experience is just standard human experience, normal, the default reality—as well as equally desirable if not accessible to all—when it turns out to be specific to some white people, perhaps even restricted to them, and yet another cause of anxiety for people of color. Then we get mad at being called out: We didn’t cause this mess.

Or we find ourselves weeping, hoping it shows our empathy, but then we expect to be exempted if not comforted by a person of color who is by now too weary with educating white people to show us patience or comfort. And so we feel judged and distance ourselves. Or maybe we don’t really know any people of color, unless they work in our homes or serve us where we shop or eat or at the DMV or play for our sports team. We’ve never even noticed that the most segregated people in America are white people. And we say we are too shy or don’t feel safe venturing into more integrated venues. Even though the likelihood of anything worse than embarrassment happening to us is upside down compared to the dangers Black people face every day just driving down the road. When Donald Trump is embarrassed, he flies into a lying rage, calling for violence and claiming he is the one abused. That’s white fragility. And the likelihood that he will be embarrassed, given his track record, is high. Is that what we do too? How fragile do we let ourselves remain?

Let us look at the way Trump barely prepares for these debates. Pundits say he was better on the third one but still nothing compared to the kind of preparation one needs for steering the most powerful nation in the world through the world’s waters. So again, we must look at ourselves. How have we prepared for an integrated society where we all understand where our neighbors have come from? Isn’t that how we connect to one another? By having an understanding of the background and conditions that our friends and colleagues grew up in? We don’t only connect with those who grew up exactly as we did; when we expect that sameness we run into misunderstandings, don’t we? We can reach further than a different high school or a different state or region. We can educate ourselves about what it is like to come from a different country, a different economic class, a different religion, or a different skin color. We can make the effort to put ourselves in the shoes of another person, in the room of another group, to look out the eyes of someone who sees you as other as much as you see them as other. That’s what preparation is. The connection that reaches back is what preparation gives you. How many of us are as lazy as Trump when it comes to understanding our racialized country?

There has been a lot of speculation as to why Trump is so popular with white folks. Of course, there’s the racism thing. But I wonder if part of it is also because he seems to tell us we can be lazy and ill prepared and still succeed, we can be rude and closed to others, even mean to them, and still be popular, we can be unjust and unfair toward those we work with and those who help us get things done and not be judged for it. I think white people like Trump because he tells us we can be selfish and no one will notice. Unfortunately, most of us find out that these things aren’t true in real life and this kind of behavior gets us in real trouble. Luckily, most of us grow up and learn to recognize the worth and rights of others, learn that we must show up to work ready to do our best, learn that we live in an interdependent world and we are all responsible for each other. Can we take this further?

If we white folks are as unprepared as Donald to meet this interdependent world with an open heart and our best efforts, our Black, Brown, and Indigenous sisters and brothers are as prepared as Hillary Clinton was in all three of those debates. She had read, listened, studied, and written about everything and anything that might be asked of her as president of the United States. She had listened to people whose lives have been very different from hers, all over the world, in order to understand not only their needs and concerns but also their arguments with her and their opposing interests and viewpoints. Disagree with her on policy and practice, but she holds up under attack and keeps listening.

Similarly, our brothers and sisters of color know all about how white people think, and they have learned to deal, get along, and work with us in building this country. In fact, while they continue to not be seen for who they really are, they have done a good deal of the work, the building, the maintaining of what we call America. So Clinton becomes a model for the rest of us in that she is the very example of not being fragile as we incorporate the realities and humanity of others into our awareness. We should take a lesson from her as we commit to learning how whiteness has created a bubble that we tell ourselves is the world, when it is only such a small part of the world. And study the histories and experiences and believe the stories and memories of Americans who don’t look like us. Maybe, just maybe, they know more about what their experience means for them as well as for this country than we white people do.

If we aren’t going to demonstrate a Trump-like lack of love for our beloved land, then we need to learn about who else lives here besides middle-class white people. And refocus our obsession with what has happened to us in order to understand what has happened to everyone else—and believe them when they tell us about it. Unlike him, we need to understand that in America we pay a fair share for those who work for us and receive a fair wage from those we work for; and that some things can’t be bought or sold. We need to understand our taxes pay not just for roads and bridges, schools and fire departments, but they pay to lift up those who have given the United States the wealth of their land or labor that our white ancestors stole by force, and which the country still owes them to the tune of billions if not trillions of dollars. We pay these taxes, and the top tier of income recipients needs to pay their fair share as well. For any of us to think “nobody ever helped me” is tantamount to Trump saying that he manufactured his wealth all by himself. No he didn’t. We have all been helped—or harmed—by those who came before us and by those who are here now. No one goes it alone, and if you have done well, it’s been with a boost from somewhere you might not even be aware of. And you might learn a bit more about that if you take a trip to Washington, DC, to the Smithsonian Museum of African American History.

And vote on Tuesday, November 8. Vote for a country that works for everyone who lives here, not just those with the guns and property. Let’s continue our living experiment with democracy by continuing to say no to the tyranny of rule by the rich few on the laboring backs of the powerless many, and demand our politicians continue to work against racist policies and to repair our racist legacies.

Kathryn Robyn and John Lyke are the authors most recently of Political Straight Talk: A Prescription for Healing Our Broken System of Government (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse 2016).